


Wild Things are Meant to Run

by irismon



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials, Gen, daemon AU, mentions of police brutality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 23:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2791382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irismon/pseuds/irismon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is the thing about faunus: their daemons settle in line with their animal traits. A rabbit faunus has a rabbit daemon, a prey faunus a prey daemon, a predator faunus a predator daemon.<br/>Here is the thing about you and Ciardha: you do not match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Things are Meant to Run

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally written for my daemon au graphics series on tumblr, but when I started writing the companion pieces for the rest of team RWBY it became clear that this one was too long to match the rest of them. So I chopped it up and put the first two paragraphs on the graphic, but I liked it too much to delete it, so here I offer the rest of it as written. Blake's daemon's name is pronounced Carey, because the Irish spelling looks cooler but is intrinsically deceptive.

Ciardha settles when you are eleven years old. By this time you have been with the White Fang for four years and lived outside the kingdom for two, but you have been running your whole life. First from cruel human children, then from brutal human police, and now from merciless creatures of darkness.

You have learned to be very good at running.

No one knows quite what to think of you. Daemons who settle in forms different than their faunus’ animal shape are already rare, but you and Ciardha are a curiosity all to yourself. Predator faunus, prey daemon. You catch adults staring at you often, their eyes hidden behind the faces of monsters but their frowns clearly visible. Ciardha jokes that they’re waiting for you to pounce on him and eat him up, and you both laugh but there is a nervousness laced in it. You lie awake some nights stroking Ciardha’s head in your lap, wondering why he settled so different. Wondering why there is no one quite like you.

You meet Adam when you are thirteen. He is almost twenty, and respected by the White Fang despite his age. You see him several times, striding through the White Fang’s makeshift compound like a king in exile, his horns spiraling out from underneath his mask like some shaman of an ancient god. His maned wolf daemon trots along at his heels, her long legs unnaturally graceful on the uneven, trampled dirt.

He’s the one to approach you. You’re young, still, and too shy to speak to this stranger like you, whose daemon doesn't match his own animal traits. He taps the crown of your head as his daemon pokes his nose into Ciardha’s side, the two of you both frozen in place, and chuckles. “They don’t quite know what to make of you, do they?” he asks. You nod. His daemon circles around you both and returns to his side.“Tell you what. Come fight for us. I can make a predator out of you, easy.” He holds out a hand. You stare at it for a moment, then look back at Ciardha. He tilts his head and steps forward, his antlers rapping gently against your side. You press your palm into Adam’s.

Now you sit in the blooming red wilds, Ciardha’s nose nudging into your hands, and you think about running. Ciardha nuzzles into your palms, and you remember the whispered conversation you had last night, and the night before, and the night before that. Adam calls you over, Kriemhild still standing at his heels. It’s time. You slide off the rock and run your hands over Ciardha’s head once more, tracing his ears gently. “Stay close,” you whisper, and the two of you join Adam in the clearing.

The job today is simple: intercept a supply train filled with Dust. Seize the cars. Take the cargo. Ciardha and Kriemhild will run alongside the track at the cliffside as you and Adam take the train. The descent onto the train is uncomfortable, but you have gone farther from Ciardha before and you could go farther still. The interior of the cars is claustrophobic, but you press down the uncertainty bubbling inside you and focus on the job at hand. Adam palms the charges in his hands and you eye them carefully. “What about the crew?” you ask.

“What about them?”

What feels like a thousand whispered arguments thrust themselves back into your heart. There’s no Ciardha here to reassure you now, to debate with you, to help you decide. Just you, the man who made you what you are today, and the lives of a couple-odd humans in your hands.

Your heart clears itself. There is, you think, only one clear choice. The decision calms you like a wave, and you can feel Ciardha’s relief flow through you.

As you fight you can feel Ciardha growing closer, the tight tether around your heart loosening as he approaches. When Adam pushes you back Ciardha lands next to you on the car, his hooves clanking against the steel. “Now?” he asks, and you want to say no, that’s too soon. But you nod.

Adam turns back just in time to see you raise Gambol Shround’s sheath from your back. “Ciardha?” he says, puzzled. Concerned, even.There are a million things you want to say to him, but you know him too well. No explanation will ever be enough for him to understand.

“Goodbye,” Ciardha says, and you sever the cars. Adam stands and stares, his body getting smaller and smaller in the distance until there is nothing there but the blood-maples and the tracks. You breathe out once, shakily, turn to Ciardha, and do the only thing you can think of. The only thing the White Fang couldn’t make you forget.

You run. You run. You keep running.


End file.
